


Coalescence

by Anonymous



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, First Kiss, POV Female Character, POV Third Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-11
Updated: 2013-11-11
Packaged: 2018-01-01 04:13:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1040206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/





	Coalescence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amathela](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amathela/gifts).



“Three days,” Aurora says, staring out at the forest, a faint pink hue the only sign of sunset.  “It’s been raining for _three days_.”

Mulan sighs, feeling as restless as her companion.  “Perhaps the land is trying to heal itself,” she says.  “So much of it has been affected by the curse.”  She can’t think of any other explanation for the ceaseless torrent.  They were lucky to find shelter at all.

Aurora nods, drawing her cloak tighter around her shoulders; seeing her hurting so sends an echoing pang through Mulan’s nerves.  She flexes her fingers against the chill and the tension that's built in the knuckles, taking a handful of dried leaves and branches from their small stockpile to feed the small fire they’ve built in a drafty corner.

Their food is running low.  Mulan considers trying to hunt tomorrow, but if they can’t see far enough to navigate the forest, she doesn’t have much hope for finding prey.  Snares, perhaps?  Not her strongest skill, but maybe the low visibility will help disguise any traps she sets.

“I hope Henry’s okay,” Aurora muses, joining Mulan beside the fire.  She leans in close, the warmth of her shoulder against Mulan’s a welcome bulwark against the chill draft from the cave’s entrance.  “And Snow and Emma and the rest.  Their world seems so strange.  I wonder…” she trails off, frowning.

“What?”  Mulan asks.  Dusk is fading fast, the embers of their fire the only spark of heat Mulan can see, its light turning Aurora’s hair to bright rich copper where it falls in a curtain across her face.

“If it’s better than this,” Aurora murmurs.  “I feel like Snow and Charming and all the rest were on a sinking ship. We managed to escape being dragged down with them, but we still got trapped in the wake of it, and I’m still struggling to stay afloat.  I don’t know how much longer...”

“Oh,” Mulan says, feeling useless in the face of Aurora’s crumbling hope.  “You shouldn’t think like that.  We'll find a way to restore Phillip’s spirit, I swear it.”  At the sound of his name, Aurora’s posture starts slumping and shrinking inwards.  Mulan reaches out, feeling strangely tentative, but Aurora moves into the offered embrace without a second thought, and something tremulous unspools in Mulan’s chest.  She tries to not notice how comfortable it is, Aurora’s shoulders fitting neatly under her arm, Aurora’s head resting against her shoulder.

“You know,” Aurora says quietly, “I’ve been thinking about Emma, how she saved Henry.”  She ducks her head, staring down at her hands where she’s twisting them together in her lap.  “I never thought that true love’s kiss can be familial.  It makes sense, but…  does that mean someone can have more than one true love?”

“...I hope so,” Mulan admits quietly, into the gray-lit cave.  “Otherwise, I’ll never...”  She looks away, swallowing the rest of that sentence.  She hasn’t spoken of Shang to any of her new compatriots, even Phillip.  He'd been the major reason she’d left her own kingdom for these new lands; reminders of him permeated her home, and she hadn’t been able to bear the sharp weight of her grief there.

“...what?”  Aurora asks.  “Come now, you’ve held my heart in your hand,” she says, her voice light and teasing but her expression genuine and concerned.  “Trust that I would be as gentle with yours.”

Mulan flushes, self-conscious under Aurora’s earnest gaze, still so close.  “...his name was Shang,” Mulan admits quietly.  “He was my general, and my own true love, until he died in the Ogre Wars.  I watched him fall, and felt his life pass out of him as I held him in my arms, and…  I miss him terribly, even now.  I always wonder how things would have been different if he’d survived.”

“Oh,” Aurora says, eyes wide.  “Oh, what an unfair world it would be, then, if we were only to have a single true love in a lifetime,” she says.  “I refuse to believe that you wouldn’t have another chance for happiness.”

Mulan’s eyes sting, and she blinks rapidly against the tears she can feel building, her throat too thick and tight for her to reply.  She nods once, and takes a deep, shaking breath.

They sit together, quietly watching the flames of the fire for a little while.

***

Mulan wakes late the next morning to find Aurora standing at the cave entrance again, smiling back at her, a clear sunny day behind her.

“Good morning,” Aurora says, as bright as her namesake.

“You should have woken me,” Mulan says, sitting up.

“I was watching you sleep,” Aurora replies.  “You looked so peaceful; I didn’t want to disturb you.”

Mulan smiles ruefully.  “You know, if I didn’t know about the sleeping curse, I’d have thought the same when I first saw you,” she says.  “But we could have been on our way by now.”

Aurora comes in and sits beside Mulan.  “There’s no rush,” she says.  “The weather looks like it’ll hold.  I needed to think, anyway.”

“About what?” Mulan asks.  Aurora looks… changed, somehow.

“I’ve decided that I still want to free Phillip’s soul from wherever it’s been trapped,” Aurora explains.  “I just don’t know what will happen after that.”

“You rebuild your kingdom, I suppose,” Mulan says.  “And I’ll be at your side, helping you both.”

Aurora’s smile turns a little sad; she straightens her shoulders, visibly steeling herself.  “I want you at my side,” she says, “for as long as you wish to be there.  But..”  She bites her lip.

“But…?”

“Phillip was my first love,” Aurora says.  “But I don’t know if he’s my true love any longer.  I know he’s your friend, and I don’t want you to feel as if you’re betraying him by staying with me.”

Mulan just stares.  “Of course he’s your true love,” she says.  “He woke you…”

“I could not do the same for him,” Aurora says.  “And I think we are both different people than when we first met.  I know that I have changed much since waking.”  She looks away.  “And I feel that I may have a new love, though I don’t expect it to be returned.”

“Who…” Mulan starts to ask, but her voice gives out on her.

“I want you at my side, for as long as you wish to be there,” Aurora repeats.  “But if you are uncomfortable…”

Mulan doesn’t know how to process this; her mind spins in circles, hope and denial warring for primacy.  “You mean...?”  Mulan says.

Aurora nods, face flushed pink.  “If you do not reciprocate, I will not hold it against you, of course…”

Something floods open in Mulan’s chest, and in its current, she finds it impossible not to lean forward and kiss Aurora, careful yet fierce.  Aurora laughs, delighted, against her mouth, and kisses her back.  

“I will stay,” Mulan murmurs, breathless when they break apart.  “But we must restore Phillip first, before anything is decided.  It is only fair.”

“All right,” Aurora says, taking Mulan’s hand in hers.  “You are right.”  She moves in and kisses Mulan again, lingering and sweet.

When they leave the shelter of their little cave, their hands are still entwined.

 

\- END -


End file.
